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This former horse market, in contrast to its medieval counterpart in the Old Town (see Old Town Square), expresses the history of 20th-century Prague, from its beautiful Art Nouveau façades to the memories of the many marches, political protests and celebrations that have shaped the city over the past 100 years.

The odd couple of the Art Nouveau Municipal House and the Neo-Gothic Powder Tower are the centrepiece of Náměstí Republiky (Republic Square), facing the Czech National Bank’s stern façade and the Hybernia Theatre, currently undergoing renovation. The composer Frédéric Chopin stayed briefly at a house that stood at the corner of Hybernská and Senovážná. Behind the theatre, at Hybernská 7, is the former home of the Lenin Museum, closed in 1991 after the Communists had lost power. The unassuming Church of St Joseph huddles in the northeast corner of the square.

Formerly a moat protecting the city’s eastern flank, Na Příkopě is Prague’s fashion boulevard, counting Benetton, Izod, Marks & Spencers and Taiza among its big-name stores. Shoppers jam the pedestrian zone and pavement cafés, streaming between the gleaming Myslbek Shopping Centre and Slovanský dům, with its 10-screen multiplex cinema. The Hussite firebrand Jan Želivský preached on the site now occupied by another shopping mall, the Černá Růže Palace.

The Franciscans moved into this area near Wenceslas Square in 1603, reclaiming the former Carmelite monastery. The grounds and nearby Church of Our Lady of the Snow had fallen into decay following the Hussite civil war, but the monks beautifully restored them. The gardens remained closed to the public until 1950, when the Communists thought they were worth sharing. Although there’s little love lost for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the gardens remain popular with young kissing couples and pigeon-feeding pensioners.

The end of Communism in Czechoslovakia began midway between the National Theatre and what is now the Tesco supermarket. On 17 November 1989, police put a brutal end to a pro-democracy march as it made its way to Wenceslas Square. A plaque under the arcade at Národní 20 marks where marchers and truncheons met.

Patriotic Czechs funded the theatre’s construction twice: once in 1868 and again after fire destroyed the building in 1883. To see the stunning allegorical ceiling frescoes and Vojtěch Hynais’ celebrated stage curtain, take in one of the operas staged here; good picks are Smetana’s Libuše , which debuted on this stage, or Dvořák’s The Devil and Kate . Next door is Laterna Magika, where you can see black-light productions (see Laterna Magika).

An expatriate institution, the English-language Globe moved here from its original home in 2000, leaving backpackers with outdated guidebooks stranded in Holešovice. The café is attracting a local following. Chances are the people at the next table are eager to talk to you about their travels, for better or worse.

Charles IV had his city planners build New Town’s central square to the same dimensions as Jerusalem’s. Originally a cattle market, it’s now a park popular with dog-walkers. Among the trees are monuments to such luminaries as Eliška Krásnohorská, who wrote libretti for Smetana’s operas. To the west, on Resslova, is the Church of Sts Cyril and Methodius. The members of the Czech resistance, responsinble for the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich (1904–42), took refuge here (see Cathedral of Sts Cyril and Methodius).

In 1419, an anti-clerical mob led by Jan Želivský hurled the Catholic mayor and his councillors from a New Town Hall window in the first of Prague’s defenestrations (see Prague’s Third Defenestration). The Gothic tower on the building’s eastern end was added a few years later; its viewing platform is open to the public. The crowds that gather round the tower’s base nearly every Saturday are there to congratulate newlyweds, married in the building’s Gothic hall.

The riverside square is named for the 19th-century historian František Palacký, whose work was integral to the National Revival. Stanislav Sucharda’s sweeping monument to him stands at the plaza’s northern end, while the modern steeples of the Emaus Monastery rise from the eastern edge. The church grounds are also known as the Slavonic Monastery, named after the liturgy the resident Balkan Benedictines used (see Emaus Devil). Sadly, American bombs demolished the monastery’s original Baroque steeples on St Valentine’s Day 1945, as part of the Allies’ World War II military campaign.